AllThingsD » Aaron Sorkinhttp://allthingsd.com
Wed, 19 Feb 2014 15:45:11 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.3.16http://allthingsd.com/theme/images/logo-rss.jpgAll Things Digitalhttp://allthingsd.com/
14422Steve Jobs Movie Slammed by Critics -- And Wozhttp://allthingsd.com/20130818/steve-jobs-movie-slammed-by-critics-and-woz/
http://allthingsd.com/20130818/steve-jobs-movie-slammed-by-critics-and-woz/#commentsSun, 18 Aug 2013 15:00:07 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=351849Techies in Silicon Valley may still queue up this weekend for “Jobs,” the first full-length movie treatment of the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, but most film critics are telling them to spend their time and money elsewhere.

The “Jobs” movie opened on Friday. Starring Ashton Kutcher in the title role, the film is essentially an “unauthorized” take on the infamous tech visionary.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20130203/sports-night-redux/feed/0Amazon's "West Wing" Exclusive Could Be Very Shorthttp://allthingsd.com/20120720/amazons-west-wing-exclusive-could-be-very-short/
http://allthingsd.com/20120720/amazons-west-wing-exclusive-could-be-very-short/#commentsFri, 20 Jul 2012 21:18:55 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=232433Aaron Sorkin fans with a jones for his “West Wing” days can now get their fix: Amazon has added the series, along with “Fringe” and other Warner Bros.-produced shows, to its Prime Instant Video offering.

It’s now standard issue for Amazon and Netflix to announce new additions to their subscription video catalogs, but this one has a slight twist. Amazon will have “West Wing” and “Fringe” exclusively — but that exclusive only lasts “for the summer.”

What happens after that? It’s not clear: Amazon will continue to have access to the show, but other digital video subscription services could also offer it, if they’re willing to pay up. So Amazon’s exclusive could effectively last beyond the summer, or it could end in a couple of months.

It’s a small deal any way you cut it. But in the big picture, it points out that the value of “exclusive” content is still a fluid notion for digital distributors like Amazon, Netflix and Hulu.

All three of them are going to offer many of the same shows, because content owners like to sell their stuff as many times as they can. So you can see “Battlestar Galactica” on both Hulu and Netflix, for instance. And you can see “Dora the Explorer” on both Netflix and Amazon.

But all three distributors also want stuff that distinguishes their catalogs from those of their competitors. Not necessarily because they think consumers will pick one service or another, but because they want to give consumers a reason to add their service to their entertainment offerings.

How they do that is more art than science.

On the one hand, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has been willing to make very expensive bets to get his hands on upcoming originals like “House of Cards” and new episodes of “Arrested Development”, both slated to run next year. But apparently Hastings’ team wasn’t willing to outbid Amazon for access to “West Wing”.

Meanwhile Hulu, whose main selling point is its co-exclusive access to broadcast TV shows, has made a point of producing small-scale original programming, like its “Day in the Life” documentary series. And next year, it will be the first U.S. distribution outlet for new episodes of “In the Thick of It,” a BBC comedy (from the same team that brought HBO its “Veep” series).

To date, video sellers tell me, Amazon has not been an aggressive buyers when content comes on the market — Jeff Bezos’ team has had a reputation for being fairly indiscriminate about what it acquires, and not particularly interested in outbidding competitors. But in this case, Amazon was willing to pay for something no one else would have — at least for six weeks.

That said, if you’re willing to watch the show in two-minute clips, it’s quite easy to get the West Wing online without going through Amazon — YouTube has a very large selection, of varying quality:

Here’s the full video of Sorkin’s interview with Walt Mossberg at D10, as well as another very funny recent viral video, titled “Sorkinisms,” in which the writer uses his best lines over and over, compiled from a variety of his shows.

Listen here, Internet girl. It wouldn’t kill you to watch a film or pick up a newspaper once in a while.

— Aaron Sorkin, during a tense interview with Sarah Nicole Pickett of the Toronto Globe and Mail. His comments have spawned a site on Tumblr.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20120626/hey-internet-girl/feed/0It May Not Be Televised, but the (Journalism) Revolution Will Be Hackedhttp://allthingsd.com/20120626/it-may-not-be-televised-but-the-journalism-revolution-will-be-hacked/
http://allthingsd.com/20120626/it-may-not-be-televised-but-the-journalism-revolution-will-be-hacked/#commentsTue, 26 Jun 2012 23:00:14 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=224222

What a weird weekend for journalism.

On Sunday, a day once reserved for fat feature-laden newspapers, a new television show and a San Francisco hackathon brought the future of the media into the limelight in very different ways.

The TV show was HBO’s “The Newsroom,” the newest project of “The Social Network” scribe (and D10 guest) Aaron Sorkin. The hackathon was NewsHack Day, an ambitious attempt to bring self-proclaimed “hacks and hackers” — journalists and coders — together for a mad weekend of learning, brainstorming and creating.

Both were entertaining. But, one was stuck in the past.

First, consider the opening scene of “The Newsroom,” which you can watch on YouTube here. Waxing nostalgic onstage in front of cameras and hundreds of students, protagonist news-anchor Will McAvoy pines for a time when America was great “because we were informed … by great men, men who were revered.”

Then, there was the upshot of NewsHack: In the span of fewer than 30 hours, eight teams formed, built practical Web sites and tools for journalists, and demoed their work for a panel of reporters and programmers.

One team’s Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) tracker, called Bird-Dog, got the big prize: A partnership to develop the tracker inside the Mother Jones newsroom.

“I think [Bird-Dog] is going to become a pretty standard tool in newsrooms across the country,” NewsHack organizer Michael Coren said.

Back in TV-land, Sorkin’s idealistic protagonist is not wrong to let past successes inspire him to be a better journalist.

However, solely celebrating and imitating “great men” is incompatible with the present trajectory of the news media toward greater collaboration among diverse groups of journalists and non-journalists alike.

Other projects at NewsHack (which was free with sponsorships by Knight-Mozilla Open News, among others) included Contextualize, a tool to easily annotate data visualizations to give readers added context; Dial Me In, a site that would automatically upload and transcribe reporters’ phone interviews; and On the Record, which pulls direct quotes out of news articles and lays them out in an aesthetically pleasing timeline, so readers can track who said what and when.

In addition to observing NewsHack Day, I also participated, joining a team called Haystax that aimed to make scraping data from any sort of table on the Web a simple point-and-click process.

The demo of our working prototype generated “oohs” from the audience. But it wouldn’t have happened if Haystax didn’t have a team of some experienced journalists, a dogged programmer and a team leader who straddled both worlds — Tyler Dukes, the managing editor of Duke University’s Reporters’ Lab.

But what we blatantly didn’t have, what no team had, was an easy answer to the big question: What’s next?

At the official start of NewsHack on Saturday morning, Coren emphasized job losses in the media and the “crumbling” of old business models, without new ones to take their place.

The characters in “The Newsroom” know this story, too. “You’re one pitch meeting away from doing the news in 3-D,” one staffer spits at McAvoy.

To which he correctly replies, “This isn’t non-profit theater. It’s advertiser-supported television.” It’s impossible, he gripes, to do a high-quality commercial news show.

Photo courtesy Michael Coren

At the close of the hackathon, money was far from the minds of almost all participants. Only one group described a potential business plan for their project, and many (including Haystax) moved to make their nascent projects open source and free for all online.

So, in the absence of clear business applications for the hacks developed this weekend, the real philosophical question is one we’ve all heard before: How should technology shape the practice of journalism?

To answer that, one last comparison between “The Newsroom” and NewsHack Day is in order.

Halfway through the first episode of Sorkin’s show, the characters get some breaking news: The Deepwater Horizon oil rig has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. The “good guys” then rally together to find out exactly what happened, in a refreshing acknowledgement of teamwork’s importance to fast reporting.

In a matter of minutes, they produce an hour of TV that proves McAvoy’s pessimism wrong: It’s factual, hard-hitting and insightful.

Impossible? No. But stuck in the past? Still yes.

Perfection was never an option at the weekend’s hackathon. Even given more people from more backgrounds and more time, all the projects demoed on Sunday were plainly incomplete. One of the big themes of the weekend was accepting that incompleteness is okay.

David Cohn, the founder of crowd-funded news platform Spot.us, told a group of NewsHack attendees that learning to work with limitations and imperfection is a vital part of the process, something coders know well and journalists often fear.

“This is a great first time to fail,” Cohn said.

Coren agreed that coders and journalists need to learn to borrow from one another’s rule books. And the only way they can do that is for them to actually do something, rather than just thinking or talking about it.

“It’s not enough to bring journalists in and lecture them,” Coren said. “It requires something that’s more experiential … and more difficult.”

One of the most engaging interviews at the 10th D: All Things Digital conference was with well-known Hollywood screenwriter Aaron Sorkin.

Best known for television hits such as “The West Wing” and movies like “A Few Good Men” — and, of course, the controversial film about Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg called “The Social Network” — he is now about to launch a new HBO show called “The Newsroom.”

But most intriguing to the crowd gathered was his work on an upcoming project: To turn Walter Isaacson’s book about Apple’s Steve Jobs into a movie.

Sorkin had a lot to say about that, and also about the way his digitally distracted audience watches all his work, in this talk with Walt Mossberg.

Here it is:

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20120615/aaron-sorkin-on-jobs-movie-zuckerberg-as-anti-hero-and-more-the-full-d10-interview-video/feed/0Backstage With Aaron Sorkin, Reid Hoffman and Sean Parker: The KatieCam Highlight Reelhttp://allthingsd.com/20120602/backstage-with-aaron-sorkin-reid-hoffman-and-sean-parker-the-katiecam-highlight-reel/
http://allthingsd.com/20120602/backstage-with-aaron-sorkin-reid-hoffman-and-sean-parker-the-katiecam-highlight-reel/#commentsSat, 02 Jun 2012 13:44:36 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=215862After three days of in-depth interviews at the D10 conference, you might think you know all about the speakers and demonstrators who graced the stage. But what are these people like when they’re not in public?

I caught up with 15 D10 guests and asked them. The results: Aaron Sorkin told me about the music he listens to when he writes, Nathan Myhrvold talked about cooking with a centrifuge, and Sean Parker told me about the book he’s reading.

Susan Wojcicki and Sundar Pichai

Tony Bates

Jon Leibowitz

John Hennessy

Quri

Ed Catmull

Jeff Weiner and Reid Hoffman

Aaron Sorkin

Nathan Myhrvold

True and Co.

Daniel Ek and Sean Parker

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20120602/backstage-with-aaron-sorkin-reid-hoffman-and-sean-parker-the-katiecam-highlight-reel/feed/0Day Two at D10 in Tweets and Pictureshttp://allthingsd.com/20120531/day-two-at-d10-in-tweets-and-pictures/
http://allthingsd.com/20120531/day-two-at-d10-in-tweets-and-pictures/#commentsThu, 31 May 2012 10:00:14 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=215153[View the story “Day Two at D10, in Tweets and Pictures” on Storify]

Day Two at D10, in Tweets and Pictures

Storified by Eric Scott Johnson · Thu, May 31 2012 02:08:57

Two days down and only one to go at the 10th annual D: All Things Digital conference. But the interviews, written recaps and highlight videos are only part of the story — here’s a timeline of today’s goings-on through the eyes of our writers, conference attendees and online followers.

One surprise at D is the durability of the Blackberry. See it everywhere. #ATD10Nick Wingfield

In hours, Tim Cook’s words at #D10 have been dissected & construed 3 times as much as Nostradamus’ Prophecies in centuries. /cc @madeupstatsMichael Burgstahler

Fueling up for the day ahead #atd10 http://instagr.am/p/LQTKKLmxKO/Lance Ulanoff

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At #D10. Nearly a stampede at door to main hall to see Mary Meeker. She goes on soon.Rafe Needleman

Mary Meeker Explains the Mobile Monetization ChallengeLooming over the Internet industry is the mismatch between the growth in mobile usage and mobile monetization. Most recently, it was the …

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Mary Meeker is the first to be allowed a Power Point at #ATD10. Not even Steve Jobs or Bill Gates got that. :PBo Hee Kim

Mary Meeker’s always-amazing PowerPoint on the Internet economy leads off the day at #D10…she’s focused on mobile this year…Dan Gillmor

Meeker is running through all the standard things in life that are being upended by Internet, from note-taking to hailing a cab etc #D10Rafe Needleman

The slides of her excellent (and fast!) presentation went up on AllThingsD at the same time:

Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends, Live at D10 (Slides)This year, Mary Meeker brings her famous annual Internet Trends report to D10, where she just appeared onstage. Meeker, a partner at Klei…

The Internet is down at BOTH @BuzzFeed and @Mashable. Must all be going to Meeker’s preso @ #D10. http://allthingsd.com/conferences/d/d10/livestream/Eric Meyerson

With few detractors, overall opinion on Meeker’s presentation was positive:

Mary Meeker is brilliant, but describing the U.S. as a corporation is misguided… #D10Dan Gillmor

Mary Meeker, ever always amazing fun #ATD10 #inJim Porter

Mary Meeker Talks About How Digital Is Changing EverythingWe all hear it every day: The Internet and digital technologies are changing everything. It’s become one of those big pronouncements that…

Myhrvold: Nobody does pure research anymore. Google has R&D, but not R. #ATD10Rafe Needleman

If you’re expecting a Perry Mason-style breakdown, where Myhrvold sobs and admits that patents are bad, you will be disappointed. #ATD10Jason Snell

Nathan Myhrvold believes in what he believes and he’s great at defending his thesis. #atd10triciad

I’m having a really violent emotional reaction to Myhrvold’s rhetoric, and I think a lot of the audience is the same. #atd10Alexia Tsotsis

#ATD10 the simple truth: we are scared of myrhvold’s patent portfolio. I fear the cease and desist note for a patent I didn’t know existed.Brian O’Kelley

Nathan Myhrvold on Being the Most Unpopular Guy at D10Nathan Myhrvold knows that he is one of the least popular guests at this week’s D: All Things Digital conference and, that’s OK with him….

He has a patent on entitlement, so watch out. RT @triciad Myhrovld says animosity people have for him due to a sense of entitlement. #atd10Chris Taylor

Once patent owned, offense/defense can change any moment. RT @dangillmor: They buy patent portfolios for defense, not offense #D10Dan Farfan

Agree with him or not, Nathan Myhrvold was entertaining, cogent, and witty in defense of software patents. #ATD10Brad Silverberg

Intellectual Ventures Nathan Myhrvold Talks Nuclear Reactors and Patents (Video)Intellectual Ventures is often criticized for being a patent troll, but Nathan Myhrvold talked on Wednesday about a couple of the actual …

Aaron Sorkin: anytime you see the words "based on a true story", you should expect a painting not a photograph. #atd10Gary Kovacs

Aaron Sorkin: Making a Movie About Steve Jobs Is Like Writing About the BeatlesDon’t expect a cradle-to-grave depiction of Steve Jobs’ life from his upcoming movie, said Aaron Sorkin, who has signed on to write the w…

With so many things competing for attention, he says he just seeks to make as good a show as he possibly can. (Aaron Sorkin) AMEN. #atd10jenkavs

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Loving that Aaron Sorkin in trending. Thanks #ATD10.Kristin Mason

You’re welcome.

Aaron Sorkin "doubling-down" on promoting his new HBO show premiering Sunday, June 24th! #atd10Gozer69

And All Things D got to continue the conversation with Sorkin after the interview ended:

Bruce Springsteen and the Sound of Intelligence – Aaron Sorkin Shares a Little About His Writing ProcessAfter a candid conversation on the D conference stage, Aaron Sorkin spent a few minutes with AllThingsD’s Katie Boehret and shared a litt…

Meanwhile, though, it was time for LinkedIn’s dynamic duo of Jeff Weiner and Reid Hoffman:

Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner on LinkedIn, Perhaps the Only Even-Keeled Consumer Internet CompanyControversy and histrionics is not what you’ll get in a conversation with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner and Chairman Reid Hoffman. Instead, th…

Things started off on a funny note:

Very funny @LinkedIn video at #ATD10aneel bhusri

LinkedIn Makes a Funny: Here’s the LOL-worthy Marketing Parody Video From D10LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner and Chairman Reid Hoffman today came to D10 and had a very serious conversation about their business. But first …

And then got a bit more serious with a look at why LinkedIn has been successful, with a look toward the future of professional identity.

Took this LinkedIn interview to make me realize I need to change my profile #atd10Joanna Stern

Kara Swisher: I mostly use LinkedIn to find out which Yahoo execs are leaving. #ATD10Rafe Needleman

Great analogy from @jeffweiner. IPO day is like weather on your wedding day. You remember it but to doesn’t matter in long run #ATD10aneel bhusri

LinkedIn’s Co-Founder Reid Hoffman Says Social Innovation isn’t OverDespite large scale successes by Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, innovation in the social networking sector is alive and well. Reid Hoffm…

LinkedIn Execs Discuss Being the Entrepreneur of Your Own Life at D10 (Video)Reid Hoffman said people benefit from using LinkedIn three ways: It allows them to be "the entrepreneur of their own life," "the CEO of t…

@jeffweiner says 3.7m open jobs in the US, 22.7M Americans underemployed or not looking. That’s the other jobs crisis. #ATD10Sam Whitmore

And speaking of the future, Spotify claims to be the future of music. But Daniel Ek and Sean Parker got an old-fashioned welcome:

Woah: Sean Parker says there was some indication that Apple tried to keep Spotify out of the US market #ATD10alexei oreskovic

Sean Parker: Why’d Spotify Take So Long to Get Stateside? It Could Have Been Apple.Before Spotify finally hit the United States less than a year ago, streaming music proponents the world around lauded the company. But wh…

Sean Parker and Daniel Ek on Apple, Playlists, and the End of the CD: The D10 Highlights (Video)As streaming music services rise in popularity and more files are stored up in the cloud, Sean Parker and Daniel Ek want to make one thin…

During the break, guests got some fresh air — and refreshments.

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I need to double down on iced coffee #atd10Joanna Stern

The first guest of the next session, Pixar President Ed Catmull, spoke extensively about his company’s learning process, including what Pixar learned from Steve Jobs:

Ed Catmull When we started pixar none of us knew anything including #stevejobs #atd10ClaudiaCarasso

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And Catmull previewed Pixar’s next upcoming film, “Brave”:

With 3 girls nice to hear Pixar will have their first female lead #ATD10johnelton

Pixar’s Ed Catmull Live at D10With the release of "Toy Story" in 1995, Ed Catmull, president and co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and president of Walt Disney Ani…

"That was a stupid example" Ari Emanuel calls it the way it is – I want to see him throw a punch! #ATD10Kevin Conroy

"Go sit down and think of something else and come back up so I can yell at you again," Emanuel to unfortunate questioner. #ATD10Bo Hee Kim

Nightcap = What Ari Emanuel is going to put in @joshualtopolsky after he gets off stage at #atd10 .Ina Fried

First time i’ve seen a D guest essentially banish a questioner from his presence #atd10John Paczkowski

It took about 45 minutes for Ari Emanuel to completely lose it. Amazing restraint from him #ATD10Eric Hippeau

I’m enjoying this "unscripted" show. Thanks Ari. #ATD10Bo Hee Kim

It’s no understatement to say that Emanuel’s day-ender was popular with the audience, and on Twitter:

This.is.awesome. #ATD10Jason Knapp

So, how could D11 be any better? One Twitter follower gave us a great idea:

Enjoying all the tweets from #ATD10. Only way they’d be better is if I could get Aaron Sorkin to edit them for Christopher Walken to read.Nick Lorenzen

And, on that note, let’s call it a night. We may have a few calls to make in the morning …

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20120531/day-two-at-d10-in-tweets-and-pictures/feed/0Aaron Sorkin on Steve Jobs and Creativity in an Age of Distraction (Video)http://allthingsd.com/20120530/aaron-sorkin-on-steve-jobs-and-creativity-in-an-age-of-distraction-video/
http://allthingsd.com/20120530/aaron-sorkin-on-steve-jobs-and-creativity-in-an-age-of-distraction-video/#commentsWed, 30 May 2012 22:00:39 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=214474Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin was a charmer at D10 today, where he appeared in advance of the debut of his new show “The Newsroom” on HBO, and as he prepares to write the script for a movie about the life of Steve Jobs.

While Sorkin said the craft of storytelling hasn’t changed much since Aristotle, he’s aware he’s now writing to an audience of multitaskers.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20120530/aaron-sorkin-on-steve-jobs-and-creativity-in-an-age-of-distraction-video/feed/0Aaron Sorkin: Making a Movie About Steve Jobs Is Like Writing About the Beatleshttp://allthingsd.com/20120530/aaron-sorkin-making-a-movie-about-steve-jobs-is-like-writing-about-the-beatles/
http://allthingsd.com/20120530/aaron-sorkin-making-a-movie-about-steve-jobs-is-like-writing-about-the-beatles/#commentsWed, 30 May 2012 19:01:50 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=213551Don’t expect a cradle-to-grave depiction of Steve Jobs’s life from Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming movie, said Sorkin, who has signed on to write the would-be blockbuster biopic, based on Walter Isaacson’s biography and made by Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Instead, Sorkin is looking to absorb as much as he can about the Apple founder and then “identify the point of friction that appeals to me and dramatize it.”

Speaking at D10 in conversation with Walt Mossberg, who frequently interviewed and wrote about Jobs, Sorkin said he feels the pressure of depicting a legend. “One of the hesitations I had in taking on the movie was it was a little bit like writing about the Beatles. There are so many people who know so much about him and who revere him, and I just saw a minefield of disappointment.”

To those people, he warned that the movie will be more of a painting than a photograph.

But it’s not like Sorkin has finished a script yet. The Jobs project is at the earliest stages, he said.

“I will be going through a long period that would not look to the casual observer like writing. It will look more like watching ESPN; to the untrained eye, it would look like watching college football. It’s a process of procrastination,” he said of his creative process.

What actor will play Jobs? Sorkin said he didn’t know, but it had to be someone smart, because that’s impossible to fake.

Sorkin said he’d describe his career as a pattern of writing about people who are smarter than he is, something he was inspired by from a young age, growing up in a family of people smarter than he was.

“I really fell in love with the phonetic sound of intelligence and the sound of a really good argument,” Sorkin said.

Later in the conversation, Sorkin talked about how he writes outside of the current trend toward antihero characters, with the possible exception of his depiction of Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network.”

Mossberg asked Sorkin if he plans to portray Jobs as an antihero.

“With as little as I know about the Steve Jobs movie, I know this for sure: I can’t judge the character,” Sorkin said. “He has to be a hero, I have to find the parts of him that are like me; I have to defend this character. You want to write the character as if they are making the case to God why they should be allowed into heaven.”

Digital technology gives storytellers lots of new tools. But none of that matters if you don’t know how to tell a story, says Aaron Sorkin. The man has pretty good credentials, so it’s worth listening to him.

The guy who wrote “The West Wing,” “A Few Good Men,” “The Social Network” and HBO’s upcoming “The Newsroom” had a lot to say about how he actually makes all that stuff (spoiler: it involves copious amounts of ESPN-viewing) at the D10 conference today. And he also had a lot to say about the way his audience watches all this stuff.

Capturing Sorkin’s thoughts via a liveblog isn’t the easiest task, because he does indeed talk like one of his chatterbox characters. But we did our best below. If you’re good at delayed gratification, we’ll have a highlight reel later today. Weeks from now, we’ll have the entire session available.
———-

(Earlier)
Hollywood edict: If you want to make a movie about a Silicon Valley legend, you need to hire Aaron Sorkin. The writer took on Mark Zuckerberg’s story (sort of) a couple years ago. Now he’s signed on for a Steve Jobs biopic.

So maybe we’ll get a preview of the new movie during his D10 interview today. But this is likely to be a wide-ranging talk, because Sorkin has a wide-ranging career: Movies, plays and some of the most iconic TV shows of the last 15 years (with a new HBO one ready to go). I’ll do my best to keep up via a liveblog below, but if you’re reading this in real time you should also be able to follow along via our livestream. This should be a ton of fun.

And we’re off. “What are you working on right now?” Walt wants to know.

Sorkin mentions new HBO show. Walt notes this is his third TV show about TV.

Walt: Why do people care about what goes on behind the scenes at TV?

Sorkin: I’m not sure that they do. “I try to write what I like, and what my friends like, and then cross my fingers and hope that it’s good enough for me to earn a living.”

Walt: Steve Jobs used to talk like that, about using his own internal compass as a guide. And you’re writing about Jobs now.

I’m at the earliest possible stage with Steve Jobs. “What I’ll do is go through a long period that would not look to any casual observer like writing. It would look a lot like watching ESPN.” It’s a process of procrastination while you try to figure out what watching the movie will be about.

Biopics are hard to do without seeming formulaic, “so I’m probably not going to write one” — instead he will try to find the essence of the story, key friction point, and try to dramatize that.

The Jobs movie is a “minefield of disappointment” because it’s like a movie about the Beatles. So many people know so much about him, much more than me.

“Anytime you’re at the movies, and you see the words ‘The following is based on a true story,’ you should think about it as a painting, not a photograph.”

Walt: Who’s playing Steve Jobs in your movie?

Sorkin: I don’t know. “But it’s going to have be a very good actor.”

On writing style: “By and large, I write about people who are considerably smarter than I am.” Everyone in my family is much smarter than me; same with friends growing up. “I really fell in love with the phonetic sound of intelligence” and the sound a good argument.

So yes, whoever plays Steve Jobs will have to talk fast, but he’ll also have to be smart, because you can’t fake intelligence.

Walt: I’ve seen almost all your stuff. Hard to believe you’re not smart.

Sorkin: Okay, I’ll prove it. When my friends were being bar- and bat mitzvahed, I decided I would try to learn the Torah in six weeks, even though I didn’t know Hebrew. A rabbi dissuaded me.

Walt: I went back and watched a lot of “West Wing” recently. I’m wondering if that kind of stuff works in the digital age. What I mean is: You have this dense text with lots of allusions, and you need people to rewind and pay attention. In the digital age, everything gets cut up into small pieces, and people watch TV with another screen in their hand. How does that work with your stuff?

Sorkin: When you do TV at all, the audience has a much more passive relationship with what they’re watching than when they go to movies or plays. Those are things you invest in with money and time. Watching TV is a different relationship. We’re used to watching TV while doing other things. Always been a challenge for me. “The stuff that I write doesn’t work very well as background music.” HBO works because the audience is conditioned to pay attention — they’re paying for it. But now throw in different platforms, like HBO Go. I’m of two minds: I love HBO Go — great way to watch the show. Incredible numbers now on that thing — only half the audience watches an HBO show when it premieres on Sunday night. But: When you have the iPad in your hand, you’re not getting the sound that I want you to hear, or the picture I want you to see — it’s not the ideal way to watch. “But I’ll take it,” because I want you to watch.

Walt: So when you write stuff now, are you thinking about the environment that people are in when they’re watching it?

Sorkin: Nope. I’m writing the same way as the guys who wrote “I Love Lucy,” “and I’m hoping for the best.” I wouldn’t know how to make changes to accomodate new ways of viewing, and I think that if I did, it would lessen the quality.

Walt: I think the same people who are multitasking when they watch NBC are also multitasking when they watch HBO. Does that raise the bar for you?

Sorkin: Yes. And there’s a lot of people multitasking while they watch us talk right now. I just try to do the best job I can.

Walt: Let’s talk about digital and today’s news business.

Sorkin: The new show takes place in a fictional newsroom. I want to stress that — it’s not meant to be MSNBC, or Fox, or CNN. But it is cable news, covering real events that happened in the past. You’ll see that in the pilot episode, that it starts about two years ago.

There’s a dramatic discussion of the news, and politics. But the show will depend on how engaged you are with the characters.

Digital plays a big role in the show — there’s a character that’s very idealistic about the way social networks work. And you’ll get to see the way the people on the show get their news — which is digital — no one ever gets their news from a guy whispering in an alleyway.

Sorkin: I have lots of digital stuff, just like everybody. But “I’m all but computer illiterate, which I’m not proud of.” Mostly I just use my computer to write scripts. But I’m amazed that 3-and-a-half-year-olds can resonate with computers right away. “If I could ask Steve Jobs anything, it would be ‘What’s that magic trick?'”

But storytelling hasn’t really changed that much. The digital age has brought us five-, six-minute stories. That’s really cool. And it’s great that people have these great tools to make movies, like my daughter, who has a laptop and iPhone, and does that all the time.

“I think what we might see is digital filmmaking sort of becoming the new indie film.” But we still have to “distinguish between what’s going to be good and what’s not going to be good.”

There are lots of crappy $100 million movies. But at least when we buy a ticket to that, “we know there was a vetting process.” In journalism, it’s hard to get a job at the New York Times. But you don’t need credentials to start your own digital newspaper. (That’s a good thing, Aaron.)

Walt: What do you think about mashups?

Sorkin: “I smile at it.” It’s flattering when people do that with my work.

Q&A:

Q: You wrote a play about patents. (Didn’t know that!) What do you think about that today?

A: Yep, “The Farnsworth Invention,” about Sarnoff from RCA, and Philo Farnsworth, the guy who basically invented TV. My father was an IP lawyer. My knowledge about patents came entirely from him. “But I don’t pay as much attention to patent law as I do copyright law. But whatever side this group of people is on, I’m on.”

Q: You have certain actors who follow you from show to show. How does that work?

A: “They didn’t follow me, I kidnapped them.” Good actors are hard to find, so I try to take people like Josh Malina and Bradley Whitford from show to show. That said, this new show has actors I’ve never worked with before. It’s a great luxury to write for actors you know. I’ll give minor characters increasing time, because you respond to the actors.

Q: Jon Kaplan, the guy who built Flip: How do you scale great storytelling? How do you scale you?

A: There is a lot of circus out there. But there’s also a lot of great storytelling. A lot of it is happening on TV. Anytime there’s a lot of content, most of it is going to be bad, so you have to look around for the good stuff. “Storytelling is a very old art form, and the important parts of it don’t change at all.” Read your Aristotle.

“People shouldn’t learn that rules are bad things when it comes to creativity.” Just like in sports — rules help make things great. “It’s the rules that make it cool. Without rules in any kind of art, it’s just finger painting.”

Sorkin now using “scaling” to describe mountain climbing instead of the way Kaplan meant. Anyway, he’s as nervous about his new HBO show as anything he’s ever done. “It’s not like the Flip, which you knew everybody would like. … I know for sure everybody isn’t going to love this, and I’m going to hear from people.”

Q: Lots of the great dramas now feature antiheroes. What happened to the traditional hero?

A: I wrote one antihero story — “The Social Network.” But I usually like heros, and that’s what I have in my new show. That’s what I respond to. I think all those shows are great, “but my taste lies in quixotic heroes.”

Walt: Where does Steve Jobs lie in the hero/antihero spectrum?

Sorkin: He’s a complicated guy. Zuckerberg was, as well. But when I’m writing this movie, “I cant judge this character. He has to be, for me, a hero. … To put is as simply as possible, you want to write the character like they are making their case to God, why they should be let into heaven.”

Sorkin: I agree. You have to be able to come back and say, “I was wrong, and here’s why.” “The ‘here’s why’ is important. You have to be a good diagnostician.”

With Jobs, what captured everyone’s attention was “that he made things.” Now we’re told that we’re just going to be servicing things. But Steve Jobs made things that people want. We do that in Hollywood, too. We’re making a lot of junk, but we still make things that people like.

Q: How do you make your fictional characters so authentic?

A: Thanks! I never try to tell an audience who a character is. I try to show the audience what a character wants. “I worship at the altar of intention and obstacle.” That conflict is the whole point of drama.

“In terms of protagonists, I’m less interested in the difference between good and bad than I am in the difference between good and great. What can a good person do if they realize their potential?”

The All Things Digital team is all set down in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., under sunny skies and with a lineup of tech and media speakers that are even more stunning than the spectacular view here.

We begin tonight with the first major interview that Apple CEO Tim Cook has given since he took over at the iconic tech powerhouse last year.

There will be lots to talk to him about in the session of more than an hour onstage in front of a long-sold-out crowd — from Apple’s next products to the situation in China to patent wars to his take on what it is like to run the world’s most valuable and influential tech company.

Before taking over from the late and very great Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Cook ran vast and critical swaths of the company already, so it will be interesting to hear about the state of the company under his leadership.

Along with Cook, other speakers over the three-day event include Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Zynga’s founder and CEO Mark Pincus, Kleiner Perkins Mary Meeker, Hollywood phenom Aaron Sorkin and many more. We also have many killer demos of new products.

Plus, we just added what Walt Mossberg and I consider a critical session on online education, with Stanford President John Hennessy and the Khan Academy’s founder and executive director Salman Khan.

In addition to running one of the most influential educational institutions around and a Silicon Valley powerhouse, Hennessy wrote the book on computer architecture design.

Literally. First as a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford and later as an administrator, Hennessy has brought Silicon Valley and the university closer than ever. Even as president of Stanford, his research continues to push out the boundaries around the architecture of high performance computers.

“Each one, teach one” is a laudable goal, but it led Khan to tutor his young cousin in math, even though the two of them were not in the same town. So, he devised video tutorials that went viral on YouTube, and now Khan’s eponymous Khan Academy has each one teaching thousands every day.

Since launching three years ago, the Khan Academy has provided 150 million lessons over the Internet and is the most-used library of videos on the Web. According to its Web site, the lessons are open to all, even “a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology.”

We have one more big speaker to add for our primo second night slot, so watch this space.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20120529/atd10-kicks-off-with-apples-tim-cook-also-adding-online-education-to-mix-with-kahn-and-hennessy/feed/0You don't get to 500 million movies without making a few duds.http://allthingsd.com/20120516/208773/
http://allthingsd.com/20120516/208773/#commentsWed, 16 May 2012 07:01:11 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=208773

Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs will be the best or worst movie I’ve ever seen.

Add another speaker to the stellar list for the 10th D: All Things Digital conference, which is taking place in a little more than a month: Aaron Sorkin.

For those who have followed the long and award-filled career of the well-known playwright and Hollywood writer, it’s an astonishing litany of success — from “A Few Good Men” to “The West Wing” to “Moneyball” — filled with more unusually clever lines than anyone has ever penned.

But, most famously for tech, Sorkin also wrote the screenplay (and also won an Academy Award) for “The Social Network,” about the rise of Facebook and its unusual co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The film caused a lot of controversy in Silicon Valley over its depiction of Zuckerberg as an evil genius of sorts, of course, but few can argue that it was not a corker of a movie.

We are excited to talk to Sorkin about that experience, as well as his take on the state of entertainment in the digital age. He’s about to debut a new HBO show in June called “The Newsroom,” set behind the scenes at a cable news show. It deals with the massive changes roiling through the media industry and it begins, natch, with a viral video.

Sorkin is also set to make his Broadway debut as a librettist for the upcoming musical “Houdini.” And he’s also working on another new movie, based on a book about the downfall of Sen. John Edwards, which he’ll adapt, produce and direct.

Sorkin will be joined at D10 — which will be held in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., just south of Los Angeles, at the end of May — by a litany of major players in tech and media, including: Apple CEO Tim Cook, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz and many more.

And we still have more speakers to come, but until then, here’s the famous line from “The Social Network” — something about a billion dollars:

Persistence — even if it is the whiny, likely undeserved, lunkheaded legal version of it — certainly pays off.

But you have to marvel at the bizarre karma going on, given that my favorite matching pair of digital ottomans, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, are poised to collect up to $300 million from the shares they got in a settlement with Facebook and its CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg over the founding of the social networking giant.

That’s right, folks, the rich do get richer, especially if they pursue their case well past the point of shame.

It’s not clear how many of the 1.2 million shares the Winklevii still have from the settlement they got in 2008, since they wrangled with their own lawyers over it, and the stock has also split.

But let’s assume the Olympic rowers kept a chunk, which will be worth a lot of gold-plated oars if Facebook reaches the upward of $80 billion valuation it is expected to in its upcoming initial public offering.

Facebook filed its long-expected IPO earlier this week.

And here’s a lovely tweet about the IPO from Cameron Winklevoss, who is looking very fetching on his Twitter page, even if it is perhaps about time to lose the rower meme image thing, given he’s on the closer side of 30 years old.

He sent it to his twin brother, Tyler, and also to Divya Narendra, their other partner in the ill-fated ConnectU service.

Without going into all the well-gone-over deets (go see the Aaron Sorkin-penned movie and believe about 26 percent of it), ConnectU was the Harvard University dating site that Zuckerberg allegedly submarined in order to start Facebook.

Well, presumably water under bridge — unless you are talking about the perpetually disgruntled Winklevii.

Right now I’m just in the thinking-about-it stages. It’s a really big movie and it’s going to be a great movie no matter who writes it.

— Aaron Sorkin, discussing the possibility of writing a biopic about Steve Jobs for Sony

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20111123/one-mogul-at-a-time/feed/0Jumio Sees New Online Payments Opportunity Through the Webcam Lenshttp://allthingsd.com/20110726/jumio-sees-new-online-payments-opportunity-through-the-webcam-lens/
http://allthingsd.com/20110726/jumio-sees-new-online-payments-opportunity-through-the-webcam-lens/#commentsTue, 26 Jul 2011 15:00:34 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=102529Jumio, a payments company backed by Eduardo Saverin, who still owns a substantial stake in the company as one of Facebook’s original co-founders, is finally unveiling its product today. Called Netswipe, it turns an off-the-shelf webcam into a credit card reader.

The goal of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company is to make entering a user’s credit card information into an online form a snap, while also making it much more secure, according to Jumio Founder and CEO Daniel Mattes (pictured right).

It works like this: To purchase something online, consumers hold their credit card in front of their webcam. The card is quickly recognized and verified without taking a picture or storing the data on the computer. The information is then entered in the correct format.

The technology will soon also be adapted for mobile phones so merchants can accept payments in person by using the phone’s camera.

Mattes said it solves two pain points — usability and security.

During trials, he said Netswipe was able to decrease the number of consumers who abandoned their purchases at checkout to 21 percent from slightly more than half. It can also cut down on fraud, because consumers must have the actual card in hand.

“It’s almost impossible to make and use fake cards. We can detect if the type is embossed or if there is a hologram,” Mattes said. “We spent a lot of time and money and effort on accuracy.”

With so many advances taking place in the payments space right now, the technology is already similar to a couple of solutions on the market.

First, there’s Square, the well-backed San Francisco start-up, which has created a card reader that plugs into either a cellphone or a tablet, so that payments can be accepted cheaply and easily in person. Second is Card.io, which captures payment data by holding a credit card up to a phone’s camera to automatically read the card information and enter the appropriate data.

Mattes said Jumio is “like Square for online,” although Jumio will also soon be coming out with a mobile version for making in-person payments.

Jumio will have three products initially, which will let merchants decide how comprehensive a payment network they want. If merchants only want to use the scanning technology via the webcam, it costs 15 cents a scan; for more comprehensive services, smaller merchants will pay a flat rate of 2.75 percent per transaction with no set-up or monthly fees.

So far, Mattes said Jumio has five merchants signed up, but he wasn’t willing to name them at this time.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20110726/jumio-sees-new-online-payments-opportunity-through-the-webcam-lens/feed/0Facebook Co-Founder Eduardo Saverin Leads Funding for Jumiohttp://allthingsd.com/20110317/facebook-co-founder-eduardo-saverin-leads-funding-for-jumio/
http://allthingsd.com/20110317/facebook-co-founder-eduardo-saverin-leads-funding-for-jumio/#commentsThu, 17 Mar 2011 19:36:40 +0000http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=37833Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, whose version of the company’s early history informed the plot of Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Network” and who still owns five percent of the company, is putting that stake to work. He just led a $6.5 million round of funding in online and mobile payment service Jumio. Saverin, who lives in Singapore, will also join the company’s board and work on its entrance into the Asian market.
]]>http://allthingsd.com/20110317/facebook-co-founder-eduardo-saverin-leads-funding-for-jumio/feed/0Seeing Triple Zuckerbergs (Including the Real One) on SNLhttp://allthingsd.com/20110129/seeing-triple-zuckerbergs-including-the-real-one-on-snl/
http://allthingsd.com/20110129/seeing-triple-zuckerbergs-including-the-real-one-on-snl/#commentsSun, 30 Jan 2011 05:56:03 +0000http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=2968Good thing Mark Zuckerberg’s got that whole other career going, ’cause he can’t hold a straight face for a millisecond.

What he can successfully do is go on “Saturday Night Live” and be a good sport, appearing alongside two men who have played and parodied him: “The Social Network” actor Jesse Eisenberg and SNL’s Andy Samberg. Here’s the clip from tonight’s show:

Without Aaron Sorkin writing his dialogue, the real Zuckerberg is lacking in zingers. His review of “The Social Network”: “It was… interesting.”

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20110129/seeing-triple-zuckerbergs-including-the-real-one-on-snl/feed/7"The Social Network" Can Now Call Self "Oscar-Nominated"http://allthingsd.com/20110125/the-social-network-now-can-call-self-oscar-nominated/
http://allthingsd.com/20110125/the-social-network-now-can-call-self-oscar-nominated/#commentsTue, 25 Jan 2011 14:04:42 +0000http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=2723“The Social Network,” the movie based on the story of the founding of Facebook, was nominated for eight Academy Awards this morning.

The movie was nominated for best picture, while Jesse Eisenberg was nominated for best actor for his portrayal of Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, David Fincher for best director and Aaron Sorkin for adapted screenplay.

We probably won’t be seeing the famously underdressed Zuckerberg in a tux anytime soon. Given the film was unauthorized and took liberties with all-too-recent history, it’s highly unlikely he would attend the awards show. But Zuckerberg has had more of a sense of humor about the movie than might be expected–he rented out a local theater so he and his staff could watch the film on opening day, and has said in interviews that the creators did get his hoodies and T-shirts right, if nothing else.

“The Social Network” was also picked as a finalist for the Academy Award in cinematography, film editing, original score and sound mixing.

But it wasn’t the most-lauded film of the morning. “The King’s Speech” had 12 Oscar nominations and “True Grit” had 10.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20110125/the-social-network-now-can-call-self-oscar-nominated/feed/0Film Critics Don't Just "Like" "The Social Network"–They Love Ithttp://allthingsd.com/20110108/film-critics-dont-just-like-the-social-network-they-love-it/
http://allthingsd.com/20110108/film-critics-dont-just-like-the-social-network-they-love-it/#commentsSat, 08 Jan 2011 23:31:29 +0000http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=2129Today, the National Society of Film Critics hooked up with “The Social Network,” the Hollywood version of the founding of Facebook.

The movie was chosen for the group’s best picture award, while David Fincher got best director, Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg was named best actor and Aaron Sorkin received the best screenplay award.

The win is a strong indication that the movie is going to be the one to beat at the Oscars, which take place February 27. Nominations for the top prize for movies will be announced January 25.

“The Social Network” has already won awards from critics in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Indiana and the National Board of Review.

Wouldn’t it be cool if Mark Zuckerberg donned a hoodie-tuxedo and ran up and grabbed any statuette actor Jesse Eisenberg won over the next few months, as the Hollywood awards season gears up?

Eisenberg, of course, played the Facebook co-founder and CEO in the movie “The Social Network,” which just grabbed a clutch of Golden Globe Awards nominations today.

Next stop, the Oscars, where the controversial retelling of the founding of Facebook will likely also garner a spate of nominations when they are announced in early February.

And many in Hollywood think the “The Social Network” will win big at the Academy Awards, even though it was not a blockbuster, due to the rave reviews and its fancy pedigree.

Along with Eisenberg’s Best Actor nod for the Golden Globe Awards–which take place in mid-January and is often a harbinger for the Oscars–writer Aaron Sorkin got a nomination for Best Screenplay, David Fincher nabbed one for Best Director, and Andrew Garfield and Armie Hammer each scored for Best Supporting Actor.

The film itself, in a key category, got a nomination for Best Motion Picture in the drama category.

Maybe a sequel is in order?

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20101214/the-facebook-movie-picks-up-golden-globe-noms-and-readying-its-oscar-close-up/feed/0"The Social Network" Sweeps National Board of Review Awardshttp://allthingsd.com/20101202/the-social-network-sweeps-national-board-of-review-awards/
http://allthingsd.com/20101202/the-social-network-sweeps-national-board-of-review-awards/#commentsThu, 02 Dec 2010 23:24:48 +0000http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=33422The National Board of Review has dubbed “The Social Network” the Best Picture of 2010, and has also awarded director David Fincher, star Jesse Eisenberg and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin top honors in their respective categories. Though the NBR’s mainstream makeup often means its picks don’t match those of other groups, notably the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, many expect this to be the film’s first step toward an Oscar.
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